In this Susan Slusser piece, Billy Beane is clearly mad, throwing
Daric Barton under the bus for an apparent failure to report that his shoulder
was bothering him for months. (Barton, for what it's worth, seems to sort of
deny the charge, but really dodges it more than anything else.) Remember also
that Beane ordered Kurt Suzuki to stay out of the way of possible collisions at
the plate for fear of injuries.

I think these two incidents combined illustrate that Beane is at least somewhat
serious about reducing injuries on his team (which makes sense -- if you believe
Will Carroll's long-stated position that injury prevention is an area where
teams can make real gains, as I do, then you'd like to think that Beane also
knows this), but recognizes that there are cultural and logistical difficulties
standing in the way. Without providing his catcher cover to get out of the way
of onrushing baserunners, Suzuki couldn't pull a slap-tag on a close play
without incurring the wrath of the media (and possibly his teammates, although
one suspects that it's a bigger deal to fans and writers who don't have big
outfielders barreling down on us at top speed), so Beane provided him that
cover. You can see lashing out at Daric Barton as simple frustration, or you can
see it as Beane making an example of him, showing the rest of the team in public
that when you hide injuries, you put yourself in a position of disfavor in the
organization.

This isn't to say that Beane is as on top of the injury world as he was with
on-base percentage or defense, though. He didn't tell Suzuki to stay out of the
way until Buster Posey got demolished. He hasn't put together a medical staff
that's twice the size of anyone else's (which might help address his "there are
25 guys on the team, so the trainer isn't going to go nag them" issue that he
raises in the Slusser article), sent his high-value young pitchers in for
biomechanical analysis, or taken any other advanced steps that we know about.

There are two caveats, though. First, "that we know about" is a key phrase.
Things leak out, but on medical issues, with the particular privacy issues
raised by dealing with players' health situations combined with the usual
attempts to protect trade secrets, it's certainly possible that the A's are
doing significant work without us hearing about it. Brett Anderson's elbow and
Dallas Braden's shoulder and Daric Barton not telling anyone he's hurt are
points against this idea, but we can't confuse results and process.

Second, there's always the possibility of a disconnect between ownership and
management, even accounting for the fact that Beane is a part-owner of the
business. If Billy Beane goes to Lew Wolff with a budget that includes
biomechanical analysis trips for Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill and Gio
Gonzalez and a first-round pick to be named later, does Wolff approve that
particular line item, or does he say "the payoff is too speculative" and pocket
the additional profit?